


journey of life through exploration

by Anonymous



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Anxiety, Coming Out, Fluff, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Hurt/Comfort, I dont know how to tag, Light Angst, Self-Acceptance, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), accepting friends and family, author projects and vents and writes self-indulgent fics to the extreme just to feel something, trans author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:15:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28686204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ever since he was a kid, things had felt off. Like that feeling where you just know something is wrong, but you can’t pinpoint what exactly. Yeah, that....Something just kind of clicked as she read through the page.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 26
Kudos: 636
Collections: Anonymous, Completed stories I've read





	1. realization

**Author's Note:**

> i noticed the trans tommy tag and wanted to try it out bc im trans and sad and want to feel things.  
> credit to the people that started this tag, y'alls works made me cry when i read them, which inspired me to dip my hand into this.
> 
> this is not based off of real life. this is fiction. i'm basically projecting onto characters. none of this in any way is meant to represent the lives of or feelings of any person mentioned. if any cc mentioned says they dont like this type of work, i will remove it.

Ever since he was a kid, things had felt off. Like that feeling where you just _know_ something is wrong, but you can’t pinpoint what exactly. Yeah, that.

Recently Tommy had started thinking about that feeling. He’d been feeling it more and more, especially these past few months, and the feeling just became worse and worse. He knew it felt weird when he was called “Big Man” or “Brother” or sometimes even just “he.” Tommy knew he had liked having his hair longer. When he’d gotten that horrible haircut, he hated it. He only cut his hair because his parents had been telling him it was getting too long, even though he’d actually liked the longer fluffy hair. There were lots of other things that just felt wrong too.

Tommy had finished his stream for the day, signing off and raiding Ranboo, who’d just started streaming. He went back to the VC to talk to Techno, who’d also just ended, and Wilbur and Tubbo who had just joined the VC.

“Hey Tommy!” Tubbo said, “Great stream today Big Man.”

Tommy just smiled, ignoring that twinge in his gut. “Thanks Big T!”

Phil had joined in a few minutes later and the group talked for a bit, just about their days and whatever came up.

“Well I’ve got a project for school to work on so I’m going to go do that now I think.” He clicked disconnect right as he heard the chorus of goodnights and goodlucks from his friends.

Tommy still had Ranboo's stream pulled up from raiding earlier so he just let it play while he sat in his chair, just scrolling through Reddit on his phone.

He could hear Ranboo talking and heard him start reading off a dono. “”I just recently realized I’m trans a few days ago and after suffering from dysphoria for years I’m happy to finally say that my name is Alex and I’m a man. I just wanted to thank you and every other person on the SMP for creating such an environment where so many LGBT people can feel safe” Oh, thank you! I’m proud of you Alex! I’m glad you’ve found a safe place to be yourself.”

Tommy knew the basics of the LGBT community, and so he knew what being trans was but he’d never really spent time learning what things like dysphoria were. He’s not sure what compelled him to but he decided to look it up.

“Dysphoria: a state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life” he read to himself. Okay.

He clicked the next link underneath that, titled ‘What is gender dysphoria?’ and Tommy read for a while.

Something just kind of clicked as she read through the page.

Was this what he was feeling? Dysphoria? Did that mean he was trans? She was trans?

Tommy ended up spending the rest of his night watching and reading about the experiences of trans people.

He. No. She. She had laid back on her bed, just sprawled out, staring at the dark ceiling above her. This life-changing realization just happening one random night in January. Wow. But where does she go from here? Change her name? Her brand? Tell her friends? Her family? Who knows how they’d react? What if they didn’t like her?

So Tommy decided to sleep on it. She needed time to think and work things out.

* * *

A few weeks had passed. Tabby still hadn’t told anyone or talked to anyone. She’d gone to some online forums and even to this old secret twitter account she had to try out her name. It felt good, being called something other than Tommy.

Ever since she’d realized she wasn’t a boy, she started noticing a lot of things way more. She’d become even more aware every time she was called ”Tommy” or “Big Man” and she wanted to try things out, like skirts and dresses.

She couldn’t though. Her parents would ask questions and they weren’t the most knowledgeable on being trans and what that meant, as far as she knew, so who knows how they'd react if they knew.

Wilbur was though. She’d spent enough time watching compilations on YouTube of members of the SMP being supportive of trans people to know he was definitely accepting of trans people.

But would he react differently if it was someone he knew?

Tabby knew she’d have to find out eventually, she needed to tell someone. He’d be able to help her figure out where to go next, hopefully.

So here she was, one night in March now, anxiously debating if she should do this. Her mouse hovered over the call button on Discord.

Just one click.

She held her breath as she pressed call. It rang for a few seconds, the sound amplified in her headphones. Her hands were shaking.

“Hey Tommy!” She tried to hold back her flinch and the thing inside her saying how wrong that was.

“Hey Wilbur…” she paused. “I wanted to talk to you about something. Are you busy?”

“No, not at all. Was just playing some GeoGuessr. What’s up dude?” His voice was very relaxed, calm.

“About that actually.” Here it goes, she thought. “I’m not a dude.”

She could hear him freeze. “Oh.”

Her thoughts began to race. He didn’t like that. He hated her. He would never talk to her again. Wilbur was gonna tell everyone how messed up she was. She’d be kicked from the SMP and lose all her friends and viewers. Tabby’s breathing was picking up speed. She was freaking out. From the other end of the call she could hear Wilbur’s chair move. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll go now. Forget I said anything.”

She was about to hit end call when Wilbur quickly said, “No, no, wait.” She froze. Here it comes. He’s gonna start telling her that she's a guy and that she's wrong and all of this is going so wrong and... “What name and pronouns do you use?”

Oh. “Umm… I’ve been thinking about going by Tabby and she/her pronouns. They/them is alright too, but I like she/her.”

“Well hi Tabby! It’s nice to meet you! How long have you known?” Tabby could hear the smile in his voice. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad. She tried to calm down, taking deep slow breaths as she sat at her desk.

“Like two months? I kind of realized in January.”

The two continued to talk for a bit, about how she realized and about other things. She told Wilbur about wanting to come out to other people, her friends and her family and her viewers.

Because it’d been getting tough.

Realizing you’re trans feels like such a relief. When you know why you’ve been feeling a certain way. Why this and why that felt so wrong or so right. But once you realize it, you also notice things more. The relief of understanding fades as you realize that things are not just going to feel better. You’ll notice the misgendering, even unintentional, and it’ll hurt more. That twinge in your gut, the sick feeling, doesn’t go away. It gets stronger. You’ll notice the deadnaming, the facial features that feel off. How you feel too feminine or too masculine or too androgynous. How clothing fits your body just the wrong way in one spot, how you are walking wrong or sitting wrong or making the wrong hand gestures. Tabby had been slowly dealing with that for weeks now.

And as she began to vent, Wilbur listened. Tabby was his younger sister (or as close as she can be without being biologically related to him) and he wanted to help her.

And after all that, she was tired. They both said goodnight. They'd talked for close to three hours.

There was one weight off her shoulders. Now all that was left was to tell Tubbo, tell her family, tell the rest of the SMP, tell the entire world.

But now to get some sleep. 


	2. acceptance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She can just exist.  
> As herself.  
> And that felt great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 2!  
> this is basically just fluff, because i wish everyone in the world was accepting and supportive. so yeah.  
> enjoy!

The sun shone through the curtains from her window, illuminating the room. Tabby had just woken up.

She reached over to the bedside table, grabbing her phone. Tabby read through the notifications she had (a few tweets from her friends to reply to, dms from Tubbo asking if they wanted to stream something together soon, and texts from a classmate at college asking about this project they had to do) and got ready for the day. Just the usual stuff, changing out of PJs, brushing her teeth and hair, getting a bite to eat, before she got ready to stream later. She had put on a loose t-shirt and sweatpants and sat at her computer, just thinking.

She had told Wilbur last night.

Maybe today she could tell Tubbo? He’d be okay with it, right?

That’s what scared her. She didn’t want to lose her best friend. Would he even want to be friends with a girl? Would he recognize her as a girl?

But she had to tell him. Tubbo would find out eventually, so she should get it over with now.

She messaged him on Discord.

**tommyinnit Today at 10:24 AM**  
_hey, you free to vc for a bit?_

**tubbo Today at 10:26 AM**  
_yeah dude in a minute. finishing editing this part of a video im gonna post_

A few minutes later, she heard her Discord ringing.

“Hey Tommy! You want to stream together later?”

“Yeah, if you want! But I-uh-I’ve got something I wanna say first.”

“Okay...” Tubbo hesitantly replied, “Everything good?”

“Yeah, yeah, great. I just want to tell you cuz I’ve told Wilbur and I hope this doesn’t change our friendship because you’re my best friend but you’d find out eventually so I’m just gonna tell you now,” she rambled on anxiously, “I’m trans.”

“But you’re a boy?”

“No, I’m a girl. I was born a boy but I’m a girl. My name is Tabby, not Tommy, and I use she/her pronouns not he/him.”

Tubbo was quiet for a second, trying to understand what Tommy had said. “Okay, so you’re a girl. Pog! Sorry, I don’t know much about this stuff. You’ll always be my best friend To-Tabby.”

Tabby smiled. “Thanks Big T. If you have any questions you can ask, I don’t mind. I figured this out a few months ago but I only told Wilbur yesterday and I wanna tell more people too, and since you’re my best friend I wanted to tell you before everyone else. I think I might say something in the Discord today though. But for now, if you could only use Tabby and she/her when it’s just us or people we know and not on stream, that’d be pog.”

“Yes ma’am!” he responded to her, “So what do we want to stream today? I was feeling some Among Us, maybe with the gang? Unless you wanted to just mess around on the SMP for a bit.”

The two of them sat in VC for a while, talking about who they were gonna invite to play some Among Us for a bit and then some other random things, like Tubbo’s new video he was working on.

Tabby was happy. She had told two people already and they both fully supported her.

* * *

After the Among Us lobby ended, she was left in the VC, Wilbur and Tubbo being the only other people still there too, talking about music.

“Oh hey, Wilbur, I told Tubbo this morning too. I think I’m gonna make a post into the Discord tonight.”

“That’s great Tabby, I’m proud of you!” Wilbur smiled.

And she did.

* * *

**tabbyinnit Today at 1:13 AM**  
_just wanted to let you know that i use she/her pronouns and my name is tabby. so if you could use those while we’re in private that’d be pog. just not on stream yet. if you could stick with tommy or big t or something like that on stream for a bit, i need to actually tell my parents and like everyone else._

**dream Today at 1:14 AM**

_Proud of you Tabby! thanks for telling us!_

**philza Today at 1:14 AM**  
_I have a daughter!_

**wilbur soot Today at 1:15 AM**  
_knew you could do it tabby!_

**ranboo Today at 1:15 AM**  
_congrats tabby!_

Multiple other people replied too, congratulating her, promising to not say anything outside of the Discord until she was ready.

And Tabby could tell the difference the next day. While she was streaming with Tubbo, Ranboo, and Quackity, who was on the SMP early that day for some reason, she could tell that they were avoiding calling her by her name, instead saying “Big T” or in Quackity’s case, since he was roleplaying as Mexican Dream, “buddy” and “pal” if saying anything. It was a super fun stream.

Afterwards, while they were all just sitting in VC doing other things, she thanked them.

“You wanna know something funny Ranboo?”

“Huh?”

“It was actually watching your stream that led me to figure all this out.”

“What?” Ranboo asked.

“It was that one day I raided you like back in January and I’d kept your stream open in the back quietly. I heard you read out this one dono where a guy came out as trans and mentioned dysphoria and you congratulated him and it was after that that I looked stuff up and realized it,” Tabby laughed softly.

“Oh. Wow. That’s really cool,” he replied, surprised.

“Yeah it is. Glad I stayed on your stream, otherwise who knows where I’d be,” she huffed nostalgically.

* * *

Today was the day. She was gonna do it. It'd been a few weeks since she'd told the others and Tabby was finally gonna tell her parents she was trans.

She’d been dropping as many subtle hints as she could. Like mentioning how there was a celebrity who just came out as trans and legislation passed involving trans people and more.

Surprisingly, her parents actually were supportive of the community, as best as they could be, and they had told her about how they had spent a night where they tried to inform themselves about the LGBT community as much as they could. Her mom had said to her that she had seen that some of the people Tabby played Minecraft and is friends with are LGBT, as well as the large number of people who watch all of their streams, and her and Tabby’s father didn’t know much about it all so they decided to learn.

She planned to tell them while they had family dinner. Depending on how it went, she might stream and tell the rest of the world too.

Tabby was sitting at the table, having just finished eating. She ran a hand through her growing hair, stressed. “Hey. So uh. You know how you guys said you had learned about the LGBT community?”

Her father looked at her with a questioning gaze.

“Yeah,” her mom responded.

“What if I told you I was trans?” She could feel the tears welling in her eyes.

“Oh, sweetie. Of course, that’s okay!”

“Do you use a different name then?”

“Uh, yeah. I actually picked out the name Tabby a while ago. And she/her pronouns. They/them’s alright though.”

“That’s a lovely name!”

“Finally got that daughter you wanted!” her dad laughed. Tabby smiled, and stood up to hug her parents.

“I’m gonna go stream a bit with Tubbo now and I think I’m gonna tell my stream too, so I’ll be back down in a few hours.”

“Alright, have fun!”

Tabby made her way upstairs to her room. She messaged Tubbo as she walked.

**tabbyinnit Today at 7:57 PM**  
_want to stream for a bit? i told my parents about me and i’m gonna tell people on stream tonight and then we can mess around on the smp_

**tubbo Today at 7:58 PM**  
_yeah_  
_how did it go with your parents_

**tabbyinnit Today at 8:00 PM**  
_it actually went really good_

**tubbo Today at 8:00 PM**  
_POG_

She turned on her computer and got ready to start streaming. She changed into one of the classic style ‘TommyInnit’ shirts, but this one was purple, not red.

She grabbed her phone and sent out a tweet.

**@tommyinnit**  
_BIG ANNOUNCEMENT IN TODAYS STREAM! WOULD BE POG IF YOU COULD MAKE IT_

And when she had finished setting up, she started the stream. Tabby did the same intro as always, same music and all. She watched as viewers came flooding in. Tabby smiled, slightly anxious. She saw a few dm’s pop in from Discord from her friends with words of encouragement.

“Alright. What is up everybody? How are we doing today chat?” she paused for a second to let chat respond. “Okay. So. Big announcement time!” Another pause. Was she really doing this? Yes. “I’m trans! My name is Tabby and I use she/her pronouns.”

Tabby smiled widely, tears in her eyes, as she saw the chat fill with trans heart emotes. “Who’s TommyInnit? I only know TabbyInnit.”

Looking through chat she saw a person say ‘lesbianinnit?’ Then she remembered. Wait. Yes.

“I still love women chat. LesbianInnit is canon.” She burst out laughing.

“Anyways, that was the big announcement! Now time to play some Dream SMP with Tubbo!”

They played for about an hour, just mining, for once, since they needed the resources and it’d been realized that the entire server was lacking stuff to steal. Between the two of them and the fortune pickaxe Tubbo had ‘borrowed’ from Ranboo a few days prior, they collected a few stacks of iron, coal, gold, and about a stack of diamonds, which was way more than expected. They’d reached the end of the massive cave system they’d been exploring and made their way back home to drop off the loot to smelt and Tubbo had had to go then so Tabby ended her stream.

She sank back in her chair after hosting Phil. She needed to tweet out her coming out. So she pulled the clip from her stream and attached it to a tweet.

**@tabbyinnit**  
_No more TommyInnit. I only know TabbyInnit._

_*clip from stream*_

She was really excited for the future and what it’d bring. Because this day would mark the end of TommyInnit and the beginning of the new era of TabbyInnit.

It felt like such a weight off her chest. She’d been hiding this for months and now she can finally be herself. Finally she wouldn’t have to suppress how much she hated being called “big man” or pretend her name was Tommy. She can grow her hair out as long as she wants, be called by her name, try new clothes out, and just exist.

As herself.

And that felt great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like it's kinda rushed, sorry about that.  
> also i dont know why some of the spacing between some of the lines is off? but yeah  
> maybe maybe if people like this i could do some small one-shot kind of trans!character stories, either added to this thing or as another thing
> 
> comments appreciated, i'd love to know what you thought or how i can improve and stuff!


End file.
